After a history of violent criminal behavior, a foreign national was released from jail by a judge. However, not long after his release, the man repaid the generous court by beheading a woman in broad daylight.
Ever since Alexis Saborit illegally immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, he has evaded justice. When Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attempted to deport him in 2012, his home country blocked the extradition by refusing to approve the travel documents. His subsequent stay would lead to a series of escalating crimes ending in murder.
A Minnesota community was shocked and outraged in the wake of a horrific murder that occurred in direct view of the public. A witness called police to report that Saborit had pulled a headless body from a car and threw it in the middle of an intersection in Shakopee.
Saborit retrieved the head and dumped it a foot away from the corpse. Moments later, officers arrived at the grisly scene to find the decapitated body of 55-year-old legal immigrant America Mafalda Thayer, the New York Post reports.
Officers arrived at the scene and observed a female, naked from the waist up, lying with her feet towards the curb and her shoulders near an open car door. The woman had been decapitated and her head was lying approximately one foot away from her body. There were large amounts of blood on the ground and in the passenger side of the vehicle.
After his arrest, Saborit allegedly confessed to police that he murdered Thayer, who was his on-again-off-again girlfriend, because she wanted to break up with him. Thayer was apparently trying to convince Saborit not to miss his court appearance for another legal matter. As they sat in Minneapolis traffic, he attacked her with the serrated machete he always carries.
Tragically, Thayer was aware that Saborit was a dangerous man. His lengthy criminal history in the U.S. includes domestic violence convictions in both Louisiana and Minnesota. He also has charges pending against him in Minnesota for first-degree arson after he attempted to burn down his apartment.
Months before the murder, a court psychologist pleaded with a judge to keep Saborit in custody and hold him there until his trial. However, he was instead released as he awaited his hearing, allowing him to enact the gruesome murder.
At least one of the domestic violence convictions involved Thayer as the victim. Still, she contended for him in court, begging them to throw out a pre-trial no-contact order so that she could see him.
“I live with Alexis Saborit for 4 year, we never have a problem,” she wrote in the note. “He don’t have anyone an [sic] this country and don’t speak English,” she added. “I need to be in contact with him to help us! We will go to any treatment recommended. I need the no contact order removed please.”
Although Saborit admits that he beheaded Thayer, he claimed that he killed her in self-defense.
The Defendant said they were going to go to his court appearance together. On the way to court, Victim told the Defendant she wanted to get rid of the Defendant and end her relationship with him. The Defendant said he used a knife to kill Victim because she had “gone too far” in her abuse of him and in her comments about ending their relationship.
Thayer’s death is a result of repeated failures of the legal system. Saborit should have been deported long ago. However, if he had been taken into custody as the court doctor recommended, his victim may still be alive today.
When a nation cannot enforce its own laws to decide who can enter, it cannot possibly know who resides within it. Of course, this places everyone at risk, as this beautiful woman tragically realized.
